Defender (Atari 2600)
Due to Defender being one of the largest coin-ops of 1981, many home ports of the game followed, starting with the version for the Atari 2600 in 1982. The game was created and distributed by Atari, along with being distributed by Sears with their own label for their stores. Extreme makeover There were many changes with this port, starting with the graphics, as the Landers were yellow, rather than green. When they started abducting a Humanoid, they would first “beam” the Humanoid upwards until they made contact with the Lander before they started ascending towards the top of the screen. Once they became a Mutant, the Mutants were red, rather than looking like a cross between a Lander with a human inside them. The scrolling mountains were replaced by an infinite city, and the difficulty factor for the game was severely lowered, as Baiters no longer came out if a player took too long to complete an Attack Wave (one would appear during an Attack Wave as it was, like any other regular enemy). A lone Bomber also patrolled the city, rather than being in groups of up to three at a time like with the arcade original. Once a Pod was destroyed, all released Swarmers were together as a group, and shooting any one of them would totally wipe out the group (plus the point value of the Swarmer was changed, being worth 500 points for the group). There were also only five Humanoids present maximum during an Attack Wave. Also, there were several ways during a game where the player’s ship could become invincible, one of which included whenever they fired a shot, as their ship would then briefly disappear. Also, due to the Atari 2600 joystick controllers only having one button, the Smart Bomb function was made available when the player moved their ship below the surface of the city and then pressed the button on their controller, detonating the Smart Bomb then, plus no enemies could destroy them during that time. Similarly, the Hyperspace function (renamed as Hyperspace Time Warp) was activated when the player moved their ship in the area above the Scanner and pressed the joystick button. Game variations and difficulty settings There were 20 variations included with the game, mostly in regards to difficulty level settings, as a game variation listed with a higher speed indicated a raise in its difficulty. There were also variations for Mutant Training Missions for Mutant takeovers, as the planet would be gone upon the start of a game, and the first two Attack Waves were skipped on certain variations as well. All versions had an option for two players. Also, if the Difficulty switch(es) on the 2600 console were raised to the A position, the player’s ship moved slower than if the default Difficulty B setting was used. Easter egg During the 25th attack wave, if a humanoid is caught, when the player moved the humanoid down towards the bottom of the screen, once the 25th scan line was reached, all onscreen enemies would turn into the initials "BP", the initials of the programmer (which was his lucky number). Reception and legacy Most reviews of the game were either mixed or bad from fans of the arcade game that missed the intense, fast action of the original version. Those that weren’t good at the game and/or couldn’t handle the complex controls welcomed the slower pace. However, a much improved version was released for the Atari 5200 and Atari 400/800 home computers, along with the sequel of Defender II following later, returning the mountains and was a much closer adaptation of the arcade original, along with adding the second joystick controller to handle the additional controls of the Smart Bomb functions and all. Years later, a version for the last Atari console, the Jaguar, received a version entitled Defender 2000, containing a souped-up sequel, along with a “classic” version of the arcade original as well. Links Atari Age page entry, including links to mixed reviews of the game Category: Games